In Dodge Ram, Bulverde mayor fears bicycles

By Brian Chasnoff :
April 26, 2013
: Updated: May 1, 2013 10:56am

“To the cyclists (from San Antonio), just because you have the right to come and use our roads does not mean you are exempt from common sense,” he wrote in the San Antonio Express-News publication. “Pick your route wisely. The last thing we want to do is to start ramping up citations for the littlest infractions to get you to notice.”

Krawietz issued this warning after a harrowing experience in his powerful Dodge Ram truck on FM 1863, where he encountered two cyclists who were “endangering” him.

His ensuing column, “Cyclists endanger motorists,” also published online at mySA.com, has gone viral along with his distracting hairstyle, and the response has not been good, particularly for an elected official. So far, the mayor has received about 50 emails, one from “as far away as Romania,” most of them “nasty,” he said.

In the column, Krawietz describes driving to the post office to mail an income tax check.

“I wasn't in the best of moods,” he told me. It was Tax Day, and the mayor, who is “very conservative fiscally,” owed “a substantial amount.”

“My patience was already worn thin and being stuck behind a couple of slow-moving cyclists riding side-by-side did not help,” Krawietz wrote. “So I gave a brief tap on the horn. The cyclists changed formation to single file.

“Then a break in traffic gave me the opportunity to accelerate and pass on a stretch of road that has a double-yellow center stripe which you can't cross.”

That sounds civil, if not legal. More details, though, leaked out in my conversation with Krawietz, who concedes he employed his “5.7 Hemi” engine while passing.

“I'll admit,” he said. “I punched it. I didn't break the speed limit, because I was going from 10 and then I went up to 35.”

While parked at the post office, Krawietz was startled by “an abrupt knock” on his truck window. It was the cyclists, and a yelling match ensued.

“The main thing he was complaining about was breathing my exhaust,” said Krawietz, who took the opportunity to complain in his column.

“When someone is dressed in their work clothing and using a bicycle to get to work, that's one thing,” he wrote. “However, it's another matter when someone is joyriding on an expensive bicycle all decked out in riding attire on probably the most dangerous roadway in the city.”

This upset San Antonio resident Ed Ayala, who was patient enough to explain to Krawietz in an email that such clothes are colorful not to flaunt one's socioeconomic status, but rather to promote safety by increasing visibility to motorists.

Ayala also called the mayor a bully.

“Your recent incident with cyclists and your post about it truly puts my life and others in danger,” he wrote.

Krawietz responded, “Please pick a more safe place to ride is all that I'm saying, I would hate to see anyone hurt and feel sorry for the motorist involved.”

This piqued Ayala further.

“Why don't you feel sorry for the cyclist instead of the motorist?” he wrote back. “How is it possible that a 250 pound rider/bike combination versus a 2 ton vehicle coming from behind the cyclists would pose a greater danger to the motorist than the cyclist?”

Defending himself, Krawietz said he did not write the headline, “Cyclists endanger motorists,” which appeared in the Bulverde News.

“My story when it came out in the Bulverde Standard was called 'Bikes,'” he said. “Under the headline of 'Bikes,' I did not get a single response to the content of my column.”

But the headline is justified by the mayor's gripe that cyclists are “only endangering themselves” and “the motorists behind them” when they fail to ride on “less traveled roads at off-peak hours.”

In any case, Krawietz should stop defending himself. He should take a cue from Washington state Rep. Ed Orcutt, who recently argued that cyclists, by emitting “carbon dioxide” with their “increased heart rate and respiration,” pollute the environment more than drivers.